When a top hospital and academic health center in the Pacific Northwest needed a teaching station for their imaging program, they couldn’t find a ready-made table that checked off all their requirements.
Their newly-appointed department chair set out to renovate the radiology reading rooms. Looking at best practices across the U.S., and knowing that sitting is the new smoking, he wanted to ensure that his staff had the ability to sit or stand during long, intense sessions scrutinizing images across a row of monitors.
After querying multiple firms for imaging furniture, he selected Anthro, a brand of Ergotron Inc., to design and manufacture a solution, based on Anthro’s superior product quality, unique designs that meet the specific needs of radiologists and convenient service offerings. The university ordered 30 tables, which were deployed in two waves; a successful result of a joint decision-making process that involved administration, educators and IT leadership.
Steve’s Bench is an example of how Ergotron can design imaging products in collaboration with imaging professionals.
Radiologists were thrilled with the design because the product is rock solid and moves smoothly with the touch of a button, without racking, even when they tried to rock it. The table also offered an enlarged work space that allows a trainee and a faculty attending radiologist to work side by side and switch between sitting and standing throughout the shift for a healthier reading experience.
They liked having plenty of “real estate” on the table for the four monitors—driven by two computers—set-up on each station. Even with all that, they can still spread out, it accommodates numerous radiologists, with leg room to spare. Wire management means it shows no “spaghetti,” even though they dressed the table with the maximum cables.
The university took advantage of “white gloves” delivery and hardware set-up. Ergotron offers a broad array of service packages for healthcare organizations implementing new equipment. If something ever goes wrong, customers know they’re covered for maintenance and repair, upfront through the life of the product.
Through its Custom Solutions group, Ergotron was able to quickly design and manufacture a unique solution for the university because of its short-turn manufacturing ability to make custom parts.
“Our design and engineering teams are under the same roof as our manufacturing facility,” says Julia Griffiths, Product Manager at Ergotron. “These teams work hand in hand so prototypes come quicker and production ramp-up is smoother. Plus, customers can draw from over 30 years of proven product designs from both Ergotron and Anthro. With those designs in our back pocket, we don’t have to start from scratch.”
The extra-large teaching station design was so well-received that it became a standard product, uniquely suited to demanding healthcare, laboratory, and corporate environments. Now called Steve’s Bench (a member of the Steve’s Station family), it lifts up to 350 pounds, and measures 90” wide by 31” deep so it can support plenty of monitors and equipment. Quiet, smooth-action legs move from 30” to 49.5” in height with the push of a button. It’s an ideal teaching station or utility bench.
But we don’t stop at design and manufacturing: Our service packages guarantee that Steve’s Bench will cover the needs of radiologists into the future, no matter how technology morphs and shifts.
